Oldest Texas death row inmate executed for officer’s death

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas’ oldest dying row inmate was executed Thursday for killing a Houston police officer throughout a visitors cease almost 32 years in the past.

Carl Wayne Buntion, 78, was executed on the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1990 deadly taking pictures of Houston police officer James Irby, an almost 20-year member of the drive.

The U.S. Supreme Court docket had declined a request by Buntion’s attorneys to cease his execution.

Buntion had been on parole for simply six weeks when he shot the 37-year-old Irby. Buntion, who had an intensive prison file, was a passenger within the automotive that Irby pulled over. In 2009, an appeals court docket vacated Buntion’s sentence, however one other jury resentenced him to dying three years later.

Earlier than his dying, James Irby had talked of retirement and spending extra time along with his two youngsters, who on the time have been 1 and three years previous, stated his spouse, Maura Irby.

“He was able to fill out the paperwork and keep dwelling and open a feed retailer,” Maura Irby, 60, stated. “He needed to be the dad that was there to go to all of the ballgames and the daddy daughter dances. He was an excellent man, the love of my life.”

Main as much as his execution, varied state and federal courts had additionally turned down appeals by Buntion’s legal professionals to cease his dying sentence. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday had rejected his clemency request.

Buntion’s attorneys stated he was accountable for Irby’s dying and “deserved to be punished severely for that crime.”

However they argued his execution was unconstitutional as a result of the jury’s discovering he could be a future hazard to society — one of many causes he was given a dying sentence— has confirmed incorrect, and in addition his execution would serve no reputable goal as a result of a lot time has handed since his conviction. His attorneys described Buntion as a geriatric inmate who posed no menace as he suffers from arthritis, vertigo and wanted a wheelchair.

“This delay of three a long time undermines the rationale for the dying penalty … No matter deterrent impact there’s diminished by delay,” his attorneys David Dow and Jeffrey Newberry, wrote in court docket paperwork.

Along with his execution, Buntion grew to become the oldest particular person Texas has put to dying for the reason that Supreme Court docket lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. The oldest inmate executed within the U.S. in trendy occasions was Walter Moody Jr., who was 83 years previous when he was put to dying in Alabama in 2018.

Buntion was additionally the primary inmate executed in Texas in 2022. Though Texas has been the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, it had been almost seven months because it carried out an execution. There have been solely three executions in every of the final two years, due partly to the coronavirus pandemic and delays over authorized questions on Texas’ refusal to permit non secular advisers to the touch inmates and pray aloud within the dying chamber.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court docket stated states should accommodate requests to have religion leaders pray and contact inmates throughout executions.

Texas jail officers agreed to Buntion’s request to permit his non secular adviser to hope aloud and contact him whereas he was put to dying.

Maura Irby stated she had believed Buntion would die of previous age on dying row.

“I had stuffed a lot of it away in an enormous trunk and shut the lid on it in my thoughts, in my coronary heart as a result of I didn’t suppose something was actually going to return of it,” Irby stated.

Whereas the execution stirred up painful recollections for her, Irby stated it additionally reminded her of her advocacy work in public security after her husband’s dying, together with serving to put collectively laws that allowed sufferer impression statements at trials.

Irby stated she and her two youngsters hoped that with the execution, a painful chapter of their lives can lastly be shut.

“So, I hope Jimmy will lastly relaxation in peace after which we will all type of breathe a sigh of reduction and simply maintain him in our prayers now and in our hearts,” Irby stated.